Can Ted Shake the Dew Off His Lilly?

For $40 million dollars he can have a pack of pygmy servants do it for him. Hell, for a measly million dollars I'll do it for him.

In the interest of bettering my life, I've decided to go throw a baseball off the wall at Wrigley Field for an hour a day in the hopes that some club executive will notice my pliable throwing motion, my broken-elbow curve ball, my fast ball that's only about one mile an hour faster than my change up and my slider that has more to do with the ice I'm throwing from than my pitching ability. Yes, I too believe the Cubs wanna give away their money, so who better to give it away to than someone who really needs it like me?

If a guy who's a game over .500 lifetime (59-58) can be offered $10 million a year, I suspect I can fake it into say $350, 000 a season, just enough to get the landscaping done and pay off a few credit card bills and buy a fancy new car -- oh, and one trip to Las Vegas where I'll spend my last few dollars throwing a chip on 23 at the Roulette Table. Maybe I can find Jim Hendry just as he's being sedated for surgery and convince him I'm worth something to the Cubs. I can only imagine what the bat boys and girls make. The way the Cubs are giving away money this off season, you'd think they found an oil reserve under Wrigley Field or maybe the infamous Al Capone missing vault of Geraldo fame.

Whatever the case, Lilly's numbers are far from stellar, but I'd like to throw out this caveat: for most of his career, he's pitched in the AL East, the fourth level of hell for most pitchers. (It would have been lower, but Tampa Bay is good for at least three wins a season. Editor's update: Lilly was 1-1 with a 6.70 ERA in 3 starts against the D-Rays last season. So maybe the AL East is the fifth level of hell.)

For as much as I wanna say this is a good move by the Cubs, there as some stinky numbers involved. I could say he's an innings guy (181.2 last season), but those will be shortened severely in the NL having to bat more frequently and being pinch hit for. I could say the Cubs needed a lefty starter, but Glendon Rusch and Rich Hill are lefties so there's no immediate need for the Cubs there. And one more number I'm sure will astound Cubs fans, his best seasonal ERA was in 2002 when he was a part-time starter (11 starts)/ part-time reliever (5 relief appearances) for the Yankees: 3.40; he hasn't thrown under 4.06 in the rest of his nine seasons including a hurl-inducing 5.56 as recent as 2005.

At least the Cubs have moxie; they're spending money and don't care how it's done. Now where's my video camera so I can make my audition tape for when Jim Hendry's job becomes available in June? Hey, if Theo Epstein can do it, so can I. And I'll only use half the team as Ted Lilly's personal shaker.